FINA’s new rule bans transgender athletes such as Lia Thomas from women’s swimming. He consulted with three different groups. Today we will discuss about Lia Thomas: Transition| Swimming| Ban| Law school| Interview.
Lia Thomas: Transition| Swimming| Ban| Law school| Interview
Lia Katherine Thomas (born 1998/1999) is an American swimmer and was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. In March 2022, she became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship in any sport after winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle event. In 2021 and 2022, she became a part of the public debate about transgender women in sports.
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Lia Thomas
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| Born | 1998/1999 (age 22–23) |
| Occupation | College student |
| Known for | First openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship |
| Sports career | |
| Personal information | |
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[1] |
| Sport | Swimming |
| Strokes | Freestyle Sprint/Distance |
| College team | University of Pennsylvania |
Transition
Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who made headlines after winning the NCAA Division I national championship, responded to critics who say she got an unfair advantage in competing against women.
Thomas spent three years swimming for the Penn men’s team, then joined the women’s team for the 2021–2022 season.
“I think the biggest misconception is that I made the transition,” Thomas told ABC News and ESPN. “People would say, ‘Oh, she just transitioned so she’ll have an advantage, so she can win. I transitioned from being happy to being true to myself.”
Just a month after Thomas won the 500 freestyle at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in March, 16 of her teammates wrote a letter to the school and the Ivy League saying that Thomas should not compete against women.
Swimming
Lia Thomas, who earlier this year became the first transgender swimmer to win a major US college title, pushed back against criticism that she had an unfair advantage over her competitors.
Thomas won the NCAA 500m freestyle title in March. USA Swimming’s policy states that trans athletes must undergo three years of hormone replacement therapy before they are allowed to compete. Thomas was six months short of that goal when he won the title, but the NCAA, the governing body of college sports in the US, decided not to adopt USA Swimming’s rules and allowed him to compete.
Thomas remained largely silent while competing but spoke to ESPN in an interview published Tuesday.
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“I think the biggest misconception is why I made the transition,” Thomas said. “People will say, ‘Oh, he just transitioned so he’ll have an advantage, so he can win.’ I made the transition to be happy, to be true to myself.”
Ban
The world swimming governing body, FINA, voted to ban transgender women from elite swimming. The restriction affects any trans woman, except a small number who were given puberty inhibitors before the age of 12, and therefore never went through endogenous puberty.
The decision, taken in response to the recent success of trans swimmer Lia Thomas at the NCAA, replaces the men’s category with an “open” one that requires trans women to compete.
Those who support these moves sometimes argue that the separation between trans and cisgender women in sport is regrettable, but necessary for fairness. They argue that the performance gap is so large that a cisgender woman will never be likely to win against a trans woman. If this proposition is true, then I completely agree with it.
This is why we have weight categories in sports like rowing: it allows more people to be able to be competitive. However, the evidence indicated in this case is generally about performance differences between cisgender males and females, and does not at all account for the loss of performance throughout the transition.
Law school
Thomas grew up in Austin, Texas and has an older brother. He began swimming at the age of five, and placed sixth in the state high school swimming championships, competing for Westlake High School. But it was. In 2017, he began attending the University of Pennsylvania.
Towards the end of high school, Thomas began to question her gender identity. During the summer of 2018, following her freshman year in college, she came out as transgender to her family. She began using her new name on New Year’s Day in 2020. In an interview with Sports Illustrated she said, “In a way, it was like being reborn for the first time in my life, feeling completely connected to my name and who I am and living what I am. . I have taken.”
Interview
After her final practice of the week, the most controversial athlete in America sat with her back to the wall in the corner of a nearly empty Philadelphia coffeehouse. Lia Thomas has done some of her best work this season while still feeling suffocated. Her long torso was wrapped in a University of Pennsylvania swim and dive jacket this January evening, her hair still damp from the swim—about three miles staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool. She looked tired. While college students across the country were digging in on Friday nights, Thomas was thinking about his weekend plans: sleeping in, reading, and another grueling swim practice.
It was unlike none in his 22 years and unlike none in the history of his sport. Austin’s shy senior economics major became one of the nation’s foremost college athletes and, as a result, the center of a national debate—a living, breathing, real-time Rorschach test of how society views those who challenge conventions.
“I just want to show trans kids and younger trans athletes that they are not alone,” she says in the coffeehouse. “They don’t get to choose who they are and the sport they love.”
